Pope Francis, Pope Emeritus Benedict and the ‘Secret Magisterium’
National Catholic Register, 15 January 2019
Why is it assumed by some of the Catholic press that the Pope Emeritus is undermining the Pope on priestly celibacy when he agrees with him?
A vigorous agreement has broken out in Rome, and there is rancor and recriminations all round. The new book by Benedict XVI and Cardinal Robert Sarah — or latterly by Cardinal Sarah with Benedict XVI — has occasioned much debate about authorship. Edward Pentin sorts through that here.
But the more puzzling question is this: Why is it assumed by the liberal Catholic press that Benedict is undermining Pope Francis on priestly celibacy when he agrees with him? The protests of those considered to be connected to Pope Francis’ inner circle — Austen Ivereigh, author of two biographies of the Holy Father; Gerard O’Connell of America magazine who, with his wife, Argentinian journalist Elisabetta Piqué, have been friends of the Pope since before his election — assume that Benedict defending priestly celibacy is frustrating the agenda of Pope Francis.
It’s not the first time it has happened. Some of those close to the Pope seem to think that what Pope Francis says is not what Pope Francis thinks. Therefore, to agree with his public statements is to really disagree with his private thinking. It is to contradict a secret magisterium that only a few are privileged to know.
Salvation by a secret knowledge is an ancient heresy called Gnosticism. In 2018, Pope Francis condemned new forms of Gnosticism at length in his exhortation on holiness, Gaudete et Exultate.
“Gnosticism is one of the most sinister ideologies because, while unduly exalting knowledge or a specific experience, it considers its own vision of reality to be perfect. Thus, perhaps without even realizing it, this ideology feeds on itself and becomes even more myopic,” he wrote (40).
But that is only what he wrote in an official teaching document. Perhaps that is not what he thinks, and his vocal supporters in the media know what he really thinks. They would neither be ideological nor myopic, but possessed of the greater insight of the privileged few. Perhaps Pope Francis is really in favor of Gnosticism and progressive journalists have the gnosis.
Critics of the Benedict/Sarah book on priestly celibacy went so far as to suggest that the Pope Emeritus was offering a “parallel magisterium.” That’s too strong a claim; at most Benedict is offering a “reinforcing magisterium,” lending his great theological depth to reinforce arguments that Francis himself has made in passing.
Those very remarks — on the plane returning from Panama in January 2019 and more recently at the conclusion of the Amazon synod in October — were cited by the Holy See Press Office in direct response to the Benedict/Sarah book. Pope Francis made his own the famous phrase of St. Paul VI, that he “would rather give his life” than change the celibacy requirement.
Pope Francis has allowed that an exception might be made in remote areas — the Pacific Islands were the example he mentioned — but that he was opposed to making celibacy optional for priests.
Benedict XVI, like St. John Paul II before him, made exceptions, for former married Protestant clergy who wished to become Catholic priests. Benedict also allowed for special exceptions to be made in the “personal ordinariates” set up for former Anglicans.
So if Benedict supports Francis, and the Holy See communications officials make that point, why the agitation in the liberal Catholic press that Benedict is contradicting what Francis really thinks in his secret magisterium?
Four reasons: Germany’s synodal path; Amoris Laetitia; sexual abuse; homosexuality — all cases where some believe the secret magisterium is at work.
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